FDA Takes Issue With Bakery Listing Love as Ingredient

The FDA published a letter on its website addressed to the Massachusetts bakery reprimanding them for listing 'love' as an ingredient on their granola.

(Published Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017)

A Massachusetts bakery's granola may be made with love, but federal officials say it shouldn't be listed as an ingredient on the package.

Nashoba Brook Bakery, in Concord, was taken to task by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for listing "love" as an ingredient on its Nashoba Granola label. In a letter posted this week on the FDA website, the agency said federal regulations require that ingredients "must be listed by their common or usual name."

"'Love' is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material because it is not part of the common or usual name of the ingredient," the FDA wrote.

The agency said in a statement Wednesday that listing "love" as an ingredient was just one of several violations, including a failure by the company to clean and sanitize its baking equipment and facility properly.

The information about the use of "love" was included but is not among the agency's top concerns, the FDA said.

The bakery's CEO, John Gates, told The Associated Press the bakery will be "fully cooperative" with the FDA. He also said the bakery has a "cleaning contract of $100,000 per year," along with a pest control contract.

"We are primarily an old world handmade sourdough based bread company," said Gates. "What we do really requires care, attention, passion and really love."

Gates said the company has gotten a positive reaction from people since news of the letter began to circulate.

"It taps this feeling that a lot of Americans have that there are ways in which the government can overreach, and it seems kind of silly," Gates said. "Because it's about the word love, it's cathartic. ... It makes it something that people can smile at."

Bakery co-owner and chief baker Stuart Witt said the company has been open nearly 20 years, and has been selling granola nearly that long. "Love," has been listed on the label from the beginning, he said.

"We feel very strongly that love is a big part of what we do," he said, adding that as much care is put into baking the company's rustic, European-style sourdough bread, which the bakery lets rise for 12 to 14 hours a day.

With all that labor comes a very important ingredient, which is love according to Gates.

"Because it's such a long process, there's so much room for error if you're not really caring and putting a lot of love into it," he said. "It was in part light heart-ed, but it was also to signal our customers that we really care about what we do," he said.